Once You Go Jack
by linaerys
Summary: Elizabeth and Will try to leave Captain Jack, but how long can they stay away? Parts 1-3
1. Part 1

Once you go Jack Part 1  
  
Title: "Once you go Jack . . ."  
Author: linaerys  
E-mail: linaerys@yahoo.com  
Fandom: PotC  
Rating/Classification: PG, J/E/W, angst.  
Disclaimer: Although I work for a Disney subsidiary, I do not own these characters  
Summary: Elizabeth and Will try to leave Captain Jack, but how long can they stay away?   
  
She approached him one sunny day as he stood at the helm. Elizabeth knew Jack was happiest there, the time-smoothed wheel of the Black Pearl clasped in his roughened hands. Elizabeth did not want to dwell too much on those hands, which knew her as intimately as they knew the curve of that wood, hands that didn't need a compass to find every part of her body, and make it willing.   
  
Jack smiled his half-smile as he saw her approach, "What is it, luv? You've been roamin' aimlessly on deck all morning . . . you want some more of your Jack, hmm?" he slurred, and rolled his eyes toward her, "Don't quite know how to ask in the heat of the day?" His words were casual, and bantering, as always. She well knew, the only side Captain Jack Sparrow was ever on was his own. Luckily, or unluckily, that side had been her's and Will's as well for the last few years. Now, however, she felt it was time to end it.   
  
The night before, Jack had a wish to watch over his ship at night, so Will and Elizabeth were left alone. Husband and wife, they were alone together sometimes, but on this night, the wind stirred and blew through their cabin, and as they shivered and drew together, Will found to courage to say something to Elizabeth that had been in his heart for a long time. "I think we've been here too long," he said quietly to Elizabeth's head buried against his chest. Her hair was still soft and fine, even after years at sea, and the curls adhered to the sea mist condensing on his body. She looked up at him, and even through the gloom he could see tears glistening in her eyes. "We don't really belong," Will continued, "our past is too respectable, and I think about the future too much, for a life like this.   
  
"Piracy is a better life for those with nothing to lose," he continued, staring earnestly at her through the gloom. His eyes held that concerned look so often lately, and she wanted to smooth the furrows out of his once-clear brow. "Like Jack," she said, dully, "you mean like Jack has nothing to lose." Will had to look away. Elizabeth wondered if they were thinking the same thing, that if only Jack needed them the way they needed him, they could stay, and not feel this gnawing loneliness, even when they were all together. Then, Elizabeth wondered, would he really be Jack?   
  
"We have each other!" Will exclaimed, some of that old fervor entering his voice, as it once had when he defied the law and Elizabeth's father to rescue her. Elizabeth nodded, some long-buried excitement surfacing, as she realized that this would change their lives again, perhaps starting a new adventure, a new course toward a new horizon.   
  
In the light of day, Elizabeth felt a little less certain. Jack's rag-tag elegance and rakish beauty stirred her in a way that was so very different than Will's boyish charm, and the woman she had grown into was loath to let that go. She summoned her calm reserve, honed by countless storms and battles, that icy emotionless state necessary for dragging a dagger against a man's throat, or worse, she thought, in this case dragging it across her own. She put on her practiced demeanor as a governor's daughter: important, and higher class than a mere pirate. Her voice was clear and low and untroubled when she said, "I think Will and I will disembark in Tortuga and find our own passage back to Port Royal."   
  
Jack cocked his head like a parrot, and his brown eyes were wide, but could have been looking at anything, not the woman in whose bed he'd spent the past five years, "Time for a family life, eh, luv?" he asked lightly, "I allus said you and Will would make loverly babies. 'Course you'd better make sure he works as well on his own as he does with company." He waggled his tongue at her.   
  
"Okay, then," she said frowning, then turned back, "and then there's our share of the treasure to think about. We haven't been at this as long as you, but I'm sure we've amassed a share." Jack inhaled the breeze deeply with his eyes half closed, then, out of step with the rhythms of ordinary conversation, he replied, "of course, that would be the question. You would even never know to be a pirate without me, and your precious William Turner would still be a black smith . . .." He sagged deliriously against Pearl's helm, hair, clothes, eyes and limbs all seeming to follow the movement on their own schedule, "that's got to be worth something now. Luv," he concluded with a drunken, half-lidded smile.   
  
Elizabeth huffed and crossed her arms and exclaimed, "Who knew parlay before going on Barbosa's deck, who nearly beat the Pearl in a sea battle, who . . . who . . . rescued you from the gallows? I knew plenty about piracy!"   
  
Jack came up a little too close, as always, and she could smell his sweat and the incomprehensible mixture of perfumes and spices he wore, and looked at her with wide-eyed innocence. "I'm quite certain I could have managed that all on my own. I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. Don't forget it, savvy? And, I think I recall your first attempt at parlay getting you taken prisoner and . . . rrravished by a pirate on a dessert island."   
  
Well, at least it wasn't turning emotional, Elizabeth thought, as she stalked away. Damn him, nothing was decided, and did nothing ever bother the man? Penetrate through his perpetual haze? She never scored any points off him, he took everything in stride, and she was never sure, when he paused before answering, whether he really needed the time to think, or he just liked the sound of his silence filling the air.   
  
When Jack came that night to their bedchamber, Will turned to Elizabeth with a hurt look. "Didn't you . . .?" he said under his breath.   
  
Jack removed his battered tricorn hat and swung round to regard them, recriminations written clearly on their faces. "Don't mind me," he drawled, "I just sleep here." He collapsed on the bed without even his habitual swig of rum, and started snoring ostentatiously. Then he stopped abruptly and opened one eye, "this is the captain's chamber, after all, and last I checked . . . I'm the captain."   
  
The next day Will and Elizabeth moved their things into one of the passenger chambers. Will embraced Elizabeth gently that night, as they lay in bed together. The silence descended thickly, and before they fell asleep, Elizabeth pulled away to the other side of the bed. She promised herself she would not cry. She and Will were rarely together without Jack. He brought the spark and interest, and Will seemed plain and dull without a foil in Jack.   
  
Elizabeth awoke to the sound of Anamaria singing. It was not a sound she heard much before, and her heart sunk with the thought that Jack might have gone to her bed already. Not that he didn't dally with anyone who took his fancy, but this was different, no longer a game, no longer merely foreplay for the moment when he would spin his stories for Will and Elizabeth as they imagined him with trollops and youths, and ONCE, he claimed, "a very insistent sheep."   
  
The next night when they came together in the guest room, Will was ardent, covered her hair and face with kisses, and caressed her breasts with hands that were still rough as when she'd met him. Now, of course, it was from the ropes rather than the hammer, but it felt much the same. Then she gave a jump as a rope splinter scratched her skin unexpectedly. Of course, that was no match for the bruises she often got from a night of lovemaking between her Will and her Jack. Will laid her down on the bed (too soft, too empty) and entered her. She looked up at the dark cross beams of the ceiling (too quiet), and although Will held her after.   
  
Luckily, the ship landed in Tortuga the next day, to replenish their supplies, and give the crew a chance to enjoy their ill-gotten gains. Elizabeth had her hands full deciding, with the rest of the officers, what to hold, and what to sell, and what needed to be spent on repairs for the ship. They were still undoing some of the cannon damage from their last run-in with the British Navy, but it was mostly cosmetic at this point. Elizabeth hadn't been able to get Jack to agree about how to portion off the plunder, and also had not announced their plans to leave to the crew.   
  
"You know," Elizabeth mentioned to Will while they were dressing for town in their chamber, "Tortuga might not be the best place to transport to a respectable British outpost. Maybe we should wait until we hit St. Martin." Will got that sad look on his face again, furrowing his brow, that way she usually wanted to smooth, but now . . . now Will whispered, low and ugly, "it's because you want to spend more time with him, isn't it."   
  
"We agreed, Will," she responded, even and sure, "we agreed to try it alone. Now lets go get good and drunk with the crew in Tortuga, but think about it, will you? This may not be the best place to depart."   
***   
Jack was singing, drunkenly, with Mr. Gibbs in the Rusty Wicket. He paused, frowned into his beard and said, "Wot's a wicket?" to no one in particular, before refilling his mug again, toasting the air, and quaffing the drink. Elizabeth sat down the table from him. There was a loud party going on around them, but it seemed like everything Jack said or sang, every mumbled, incoherent bit of wisdom was poured directly into her ear. That sibilant, throaty, seductive voice was speaking directly to her. Abruptly, she got up, not sure where she was going, but she needed to get away from his obliviousness, and her own awareness.   
  
Will watched from another part of the pub, as Elizabeth got up, and Jack smirked into his drink. Will sat heavily in the stained wooden chair, and contemplated the scarred surface of the table, and the fact that he didn't know where half a litre of rum had gone. Then he felt a heavy arm, clad in slippery silk settle on his shoulder. "Crying into our drink, are we, mate?" he heard Jack ask, "You haaave the lady now . . . the shhtrumpet." Will groped desultorily for his sword, but all he found was Jack's leg.   
  
"Ahhhh," said Jack, leaning his head back, "so that's what we're wanting now. Best talk to your lady about that."   
  
"It was my idea to leave," Will said, more tired now, than jealous or angry. Jack grabbed his crotch and made a face. "Not an idea you're real happy with, mate. A man can tell." The room spun briefly in front of Will's eyes and before he could think of an appropriate response, Jack had loped off elsewhere.   
  
Jack found Elizabeth outside, cooling off against the stone of the pub. She was hidden in the shadows, but she knew, if Jack was looking for her, he could find her. The animal part of him seemed stronger than in most men, and he could probably track her by scent. Three days, denying herself her Jack, and already she couldn't stand it. And Will didn't seem much better off. Before, when they came together without Jack it was a treat, a stolen moment of childish delights; now it just felt like work.   
  
As if she had conjured him with her thoughts, Jack materialized out of the shadows. Without any of his characteristic mocking words, he pressed her up against the stone wall with a kiss, softer and smoother than usual. "There now," he said, wiping at her tears with a stained finger, "that was a proper goodbye kiss. Go to your husband now, there's a good lass." And he melted off into the shadows again.   
  
To be continued . . .   
  



	2. Part 2

Once you go Jack Part 2  
  
Title: "Once you go Jack . . . Part 2"  
Author: linaerys  
E-mail: linaerys@yahoo.com  
Fandom: PotC  
Rating/Classification: R, J/E/W, less angst but still some.  
Disclaimer: Although I work for a Disney subsidiary, I do not own these characters  
Summary: Elizabeth and Will try to leave Captain Jack, but how long can they stay away? Apparently not very long.   
  
Will awoke with a familiar, uncomfortable feeling. Several, actually; one was that his brain was definitely functioning slower than usual, and two, that he seemed to be having trouble breathing through his nose. I know this one, he thought, it's thick, doesn't smell great, and—here he tried to inhale deeply—it is rather grainy and hard to breath in. Other sensations started to greet him, the leaden feeling in his limbs, the pounding headache working its way out from his temples. Ah hah, he realized, I'm laying face down, in the dirt, and trying to breathe it in.   
  
Hmmm, now where was this dirt. That was another thought to be pondered. The last time he had truly felt this awful, he had awoken on the street in Port Royal, after Barbosa's pirates had attacked. But this wasn't Port Royal; for one thing, it smelled worse, for another, there seemed to be some loud snuffling noises near him. Pigs, his mind eventually produced. He managed to turn himself over and found, to his surprise and delight, that he was still clutching a half-full bottle of rum in his hand. "I know what to do about this," he mumbled and took a swig. The pigs started nosing around, but they seemed like nothing more than big pillows to him, as oblivion took him again.   
  
The next thing he knew was a splash of water in the face, and Mr. Gibbs standing over him. "Heh," he laughed, "isn't this a fine change, laddie. Captain wants to meet."   
  
Twilight fell quickly in Tortoga, so close to the equator, and Will saw the skies darkening through the palm trees, and judged it to be late afternoon. He looked down, shamefaced at his rumpled, smelly clothing, much the worse for wear for having spent the night and most of a day in a pig-sty. Mr. Gibbs noticed him trying to straighten out his appearance and said, "No harm in it, laddie. I've spent many a fine evening on shore leave and awoken with nothing but a bottle. Sailor's lot."   
  
Will tried to remember the night before. He recalled some maudlin drinking, being groped by Jack—as if that weren't a common enough experience—and . . . waking up in dirt. There had to be more to it than that. Oh yes, some sadistic corner of his mind supplied, there was more. He had a fuzzy recollection of crying . . . about Jack? To Jack? He couldn't quite work it out. At least Gibbs thinks it was a fine evening, so I hope I didn't make that big a fool out of myself, he rationalized.   
  
They reached a small door under some stairs. Gibbs looked around carefully, then rapped a signal on the door, and Anamaria let them in. The crew was talking aimlessly, hashing over past battles, debating the merit of various sailors they'd seen for hire, to shore up the Pearl's ranks. Jack was already in full story telling mode, wrapping up some yarn about a nun's knickers. Elizabeth looked the way he loved best, in white britches that hugged the curves of her arse, worn men's boots, and a loose white shirt. Her hair was pulled casually back from her face, but fell long and wavy down her back. A sword was belted around one hip, and a dagger rode low on the other. Will remembered countless hot afternoons on deck, practicing fencing with her. Her defenses and footwork were so deft now, only on a good day could either Jack or Will beat her.   
  
Jack taught her to fight dirty. That's what the dagger was for. He'd seen in smeared with blood and hair after some of their fiercer engagements, and thought it was all for the best they hadn't fought near each other those days. Jack was ready to see her slitting throats, but, though Will was a competent and able pirate, he was not quite capable of seeing his wife the same way. Jack looked ready to get started, and conversation started to die down. Elizabeth swung one graceful leg up on the table. Jack regarded it with lazy delectation, and leapt up on the table.   
  
"Ah, we're all here," Jack began, "There's a ship as needs attacking sailing for Isla de los Muertos. One of Barbosa's officers has gotten himself a ship and crew and now has some treasure to leave there, and I think it would really be best if we relieved him of it, savvy?   
  
"It's a big ship, lots of guns, but slow. Big ship, like the dauntless. Needs a big crew."   
  
The crew looked around in wonder. Was Jack looking to become commodore?   
  
"Many of you may be wondering," Jack continued, "if I want to become commodore. And I say: take what you can!"   
  
"And give nothing back!" roared back the crew. Will saw Elizabeth raise her glass with the rest of them   
  
"We depart in the dead man's hour," he added, "the darkest hour of night. We don't need all of Tortuga knowing our business, mmm? Be ready."   
  
Elizabeth threw an unmistakable look at Will; it was all there, the pouting lips, the flaring nostrils, the wide eyes—she had every intention of being on the Pearl when they attacked. Why did I ever suggest leaving? Will berated himself, she'd die without this excitement. Jack seemed to catch the look passing between them and smiled his sideways smile.   
***   
The night before a battle was always exciting. Elizabeth lived for the slivers of fire that danced through her veins. She felt light and jumpy, like her skin couldn't contain her. As was her habit, she spent the hours before their departure sharpening her blades—in addition to the dagger, she always kept a few slimmer blades for throwing tucked in arm sheathes, and a few in her boots as well. She laid out a small pistol and made sure it was loaded and safetied before setting it on the dresser. The dresser in Jack's room she realized. No longer hers. Oh well, she thought, tossing her hair over one shoulder. All my battle gear is here.   
  
She started getting her hair ready, too, dividing it into two sections, so she could braid it down tight on her head. No use giving the enemy something else to grab onto. She'd escaped rape before only by virtue of her supernatural captors' curse, and she had no wish to risk it again. As her hands were occupied with her hair, tangled in a difficult part of the braid, she heard the door open, and heard her visitor attempting to be quiet. She heard the jingle of small bells and the swish of hair, and started to inhale a musky, spicy smell. Even though, at this point, they both knew the other was aware, she didn't stop the game, but allowed Jack to grasp her hands and hair pinning them up against the wall.   
  
With his free hand she felt him pull down her britches, and felt the cool night air caressing her rear. "We have a little tradition, the night before a battle, don't we, luv?" she heard him whisper. "Aye," she moaned. She heard him pull down his own britches, and as he bumped against her, she could feel that he was already hard and ready. Sometimes she liked it to last for hours, but their pre-battle lust was always sated quickly and roughly. She felt two fingers, those rough, oily ones she knew so well, slide into her, and she was already more than ready, pushing back against him, moaning and begging for him to enter her hard. He did, driving into her, seeming like he was trying to push through her. She built up immediately to a crest, but he was by no means finished, and continued in his strong and punishing rhythm against her. She moaned again, and listened to that sound she'd missed so much (could it only have been three days?) of his flesh slapping hers, the wet sucking noises his body made in hers. The finish was hard and fast and left her as breathless as him. He withdrew and let her fall limply on the bed, smiled a little smile and kissed his fingertips in salute.   
  
"If we die tomorrow morning, luv," he said as he buckled up his clothing, "it will almost be worth it." And with that ambiguous compliment, he left the cabin.   
  
To be continued . . .   
  



	3. Part 3

Once you go Jack Part 3  
  
Title: "Once you go Jack . . . Part 3"  
Author: linaerys  
E-mail: linaerys@yahoo.com  
Fandom: PotC  
Rating/Classification: PG-13, J/E/W, some fun flashbacks.  
Disclaimer: Although I work for a Disney subsidiary, I do not own these characters  
Summary: This is the final chapter, but I may go and fill some stuff in later. If you don't want to read Part 1 and Part 2 first, this is after a battle. Will has tried to convince Elizabeth that they should leave Jack, but they are both having trouble following through.   
  
Will was slipping in and out of fever dreams. It was a red-tinged and chaotic world of pain—one moment his beloved Elizabeth was wiping his forehead with a cool cloth—and the next he was back five years. Five years ago when he and Elizabeth were on their honeymoon on Jack's ship, when her charms were the only he knew, when, two weeks into their idyllic journey he found himself captured, in the stinking brig of a ship, with a grinning maniac as a cellmate.   
  
_Jack played with a small knife, which had proven inadequate to jimmy the lock, but Jack was quite convinced would work for shaving. Shaving. That's what Jack was worried about in this freezing, sodden hellhole that held them captive.   
  
"Come on, there," he drawled, "I can't do this myself without a mirror. Wot if I slip and cut off half me whiskers. Wouldn't the ladies laugh then? You're not **doing** anything else, matey." Will sighed heavily and ceased examining the hinges for a few moments. He turned to face the captain. How a man could still seem so optimistically drunk after a week without a drop, Will would never know. The erstwhile captain of the Pearl was acting as if it had been his idea to get captured, as if this were just another holiday.   
  
"Fine, I'll shave you. Sit still. And don't talk, unless you do want to lose half your beard." Shutting Jack up for a few minute might just be worth the embarrassment of shaving him, Will considered grimly. Will sat on one of the crates that served as their chairs, and got to work. He was quite intent on the left side of Jack's face, trying carefully not to knick the skin, which was a caramel gold in the lamplight, when he noticed the pirate grinning.   
  
"Stop that," Will snapped, "it's going to come out uneven."   
  
"So glad you're taking such an interest in my beauty," Jack said softly, quelling the grin.   
  
"You should be more polite to a man with a knife at your throat," Will replied, absently, moving to the other side of Jack's face. Before he was finished with the right side, Jack had begun to grin again. Will scowled and tucked the blade into his belt. "Let's see if that's even now," he said, looking carefully at Jack's face.   
  
The next moment Will was very surprised to find a wooly beard against his chin and a rough, sloppy kiss on his mouth. "Thanks for the shave, mate," he said with a leer, "now let's get on out of here. There's a hole in the back and some rotten wood we can kick through. The night watch's probly snoozing on deck, so let's steal a life boat and find the Pearl." Will blinked at him in disbelief. "I had to shave you first?" he asked incredulously.   
  
"Had to do something to pass the time," Jack answered. _   
  
Elizabeth thought she saw Will grin a little, before he moaned again in pain. The wound in his upper arm, which had become infected in the days following the battle, was finally starting clean itself out and heal. Anamaria had wanted to amputate, but Elizabeth, knowing how useless a pirate or a blacksmith was without his sword arm, wanted to wait a few more days.   
  
Will tried to remember where he was, why he was lying there. He remembered a shipboard battle; fiery pieces of sail falling all round him, and two ill-kempt pirates with long curved blades coming at him. He remembered moving the battle closer to the edge of the deck, hoping that one would lose his balance and fall. He saw that some of the remaining crew of the other ship had gotten into a lifeboat, and were trying to retake their ship with grappling hooks. He recalled a searing pain as a grappling hook caught his shoulder and tumbled him overboard. He knew no more. Memories caught at him again, fever-bright and insistent . . .   
  
_Jack's sensual smile over Elizabeth's shoulder . . . another night when he was between them, Elizabeth's smooth white breasts pressed against him, Jack's chest rasping his back behind, reaching behind him to pull Jack closer . . . huddling with Jack for warmth on a storm tossed sea, then washing up on an island beach.   
  
"Anamaria and Elizabeth may kill each other, mate, but they'll keep the Pearl safe, that I'm sure of," Jack said, while knelt to start a fire on the twilit beach. The lifeboat on which they had escaped was, after a thorough battering by the last storm, good for little more than firewood, but Will was still trying to repair it, since Jack wasn't sure if this was Antigua or a nameless strip of sand and palms, and they might need it yet.   
  
"If this here island is Antigua, we'll just find a ship bound for Tortuga and work for our passage. You'll see your lady again."   
  
Will felt drunk in the heat of the fire, the first heat he had felt in days, other than the heat from Jack's body. You think its warm in the Caribbean, he thought, until you're rain-soaked and wind-blown, until you're shivering from fear and sunburn and hunger. No, it's not always warm. He knew they were dangerously dehydrated, so he picked himself up from the beach, and saw Jack lying insensible next to the fire. He tore a rag from his shirt to make a torch, and marched into the palm forest. Only three weeks at sea, and already he felt his feet doing the drunken sailor's dance, balancing against waves that would not be there on dry land. He thought he must look ridiculous and unbalanced, so he marched into the forest stiffly as a British soldier.   
  
Will was patiently dripping the dew from some broad-leaved plants into his flask when he stepped in a puddle up to his knee. He bent down to taste it, and could hardly contain his jubilation when he found it contained fresh water. He drank, water dripping down his chin, and felt his shrunken stomach absorb the water greedily. Filling his flask with water he made his way back to the fire.   
  
Will found Jack curled up on his side and starting to shake. Will knelt down next to him and gently moved the neck of the flask between his lips. Will poured some water slowly into Jack's mouth. It seemed to revive Jack a bit, and he smiled tightly through his tremors. He tried to sit up with a look of intense concentration on his face, but then fell back on the sand dispiritedly. Jack clearly hated to feel so weak, and tried to pull himself up again, and wouldn't rest until Will settled Jack against him, so Jack could sit up and still feed himself the water slowly.   
  
Will sighed. This was not how he envisioned his honeymoon, clasping a smelly pirate to his chest, instead of his fragrant Elizabeth, but he had to admit that there was no one he would rather have at his side, shipwrecked and marooned on a deserted island (or an island that was possibly Antigua). Of course, Will had not expected to honeymoon aboard a pirate ship at all. Elizabeth was insistent though, and only a few days into their journey, had started wishing she would never go back. "I married a pirate," she whispered possessively against his neck, as the rhythm of the ocean rocked their bodies together. The attack during which he and Jack had been taken prisoner was her idea.   
  
Will turned his attention back to Jack who was slipping once more toward unconsciousness. This time, though, it seemed to be a peaceful sleep and Will felt confident that he would be swaggering in the morning, ready to bargain, swindle, or intimidate them onto another ship._   
  
The glow of the fire felt awfully hot, and Will flailed, and felt a feather bed beneath him rather than sand, and heard Elizabeth's soothing voice, but the flames were still hot, and he fell back into the tide of memories . . .   
  
_Jack found it much more convenient to steal a ship than to work for passage on one, and Will, sun burnt and tired, was inclined to agree. He indulged in a brief bout of self-recrimination, but quashed it quickly. He had stolen, and destroyed, an English ship to save Elizabeth, and this was a French ship, a much less sticky moral problem. Will was unsure, in the shifting political winds, whether England was currently at war with the French or not, but if they weren't now, it was a safe bet they would be soon.   
  
The ship, which could have a slim younger sister to the Interceptor, was named The Demoiselle, and guarded only by a young black freedman, who scowled at Jack and Will when they approached. He seemed more annoyed to be forced stand up, than any worry about what Jack and Will intended with the ship. Jack spoke a few words of fluent French (or at least it sounded that way to Will), and the man's face split in a sudden grin, a splash of white teeth against the dark skin. Jack threw an arm around the lad, and announced to Will, "this fellow took very little convincing to turn pirate. His name's Francois, but he's no more French than you are. And good thing, too." He aimed a strong smack at Will's rear, which Will was barely able to dodge, "of course, you took little enough convincing, yourself," he added.   
  
Whether it was Jack's mystical compass, or some sixth sense the pirate captain himself possessed, The Demoiselle's new crew soon found themselves gaining on the Pearl. Jack ran up the white flag, and under a turquoise sky, Will was re-united with his ladylove.   
  
Proud as strutting rooster, Jack presented The Demoiselle to Anamaria. Eyes wide, and face ingenuous, he presented the ship to her, said, "Didn't I promise you a ship, now, love. And I've even started a crew for you. The lad is a natural pirate." Jack could not seem to resist another jab a Will, and continued, "He was almost as eager for plunder and treasure as our Will here." Will rolled his eyes, but inwardly swelled with pride. If Elizabeth wanted a pirate, at least he had all the right makings of one.   
  
Anamaria's face shone with an unaccustomed smile, and for the moment, she forgot the shrewish temper and constant curses she directed toward her captain. She threw her arms around Jack, gave him a thorough kiss, which Jack returned with vigor; then, with a wordless victory shout, she leapt onto the deck of the Demoiselle. It was in that moment, when Anamaria leapt into the air, black hair flying behind her, that Will decided to stay. Time and tide, and the ambitious British captain of a patrol ship would lead to Anamaria's capture, and the loss of The Demoiselle, but Will still remembered her jubilance, prizing freedom above all else, and her fierce determination as she clasped the wheel of her prize . . ._   
  
Now Will felt a cool breeze wafting over him, and the sway of the ship cradling him, and saw Elizabeth's lovely face above him. His fevered memories retreated, and he blinked and sat up slowly. A vibrant smile creased the corners of Elizabeth's eyes. Will looked intently at her, trying to divine her feelings about still being on a pirate ship. He looked down at her hands absently clasping a damp rag. He took them in his own and clasped them as firmly as his diminished strength would allow.   
  
"Please forgive me, Elizabeth," he said earnestly. He put all his love for her and the ocean into his face, "I should never have tried to take you away from our home."   
  



End file.
